Help - Windows XP and Linux Dual Boot Problems

Hello,

I am confused and need help please. I believe I was affected by the "Warning: No location for bootloader stage1 selected" bug. I recall that upon reading this I changed the default selection and selected install GRUB in the MBR. I was attempting to install opensuse Linux13.2.

Here's what I had before installing 13.2 (two hard drives):

Drive C Windows XP 500Gb (just Windows) - but the boot drive (and first hard drive to go to in the BIOS) - named "Windows" in XP.
Drive F - Backup stuff and partitions with 11.1 Opensuse Linux. Named "Backup" in XP.

I booted drive C and the Grub selection menu came up showing Windows, 11.1 or 11.1 fail safe. Everything worked.

Now, after installing 13.2:

(1) Can't boot from drive C - so I switched the hard drive order in the BIOS making the other drive 1st priority.
(2) Can boot into XP after the drive switch in the BIOS. No Grub menu - no sign of Linux OS.
(3) In XP Drive C and Drive F have been switched. In other words XP thinks the smaller 150 GB drive (which used to be drive F) is drive C with XP on it. XP thinks the larger 500Gb drive is now drive F.
(4) In XP, the new drive C has XP on it but shows as the smaller 150GB drive. Also, in XP, the larger drive (500Gb) has all the backup stuff on it.
(5) In addition, the Linux partitions show up on the "new" drive F.

So, what the heck happened?

How do I get back to the larger drive being C with XP on it and drive F being backup?

How do I get 13.2 up and running?

I guess my "lesson learned" is to read all the release notes before I install.

Do I use Windows XP "fixmbr" on each drive then install 13.2 again?

Do I simply switch drive letters in XP (I found how to do this - you can't change the drive letter of drive C in the XP "disk management" tool) and then install 13.2 again?

Thanks,

Jim

 

Many OSs will over write parts of the rival setup.

Linux is especially bad for this. It uses a different format from Windows.

More, using a BOOT loader, especially one using GRUB will generally interfere with parts of any other OSs.

I currently have XP on one drive and W7 on the other. I switch between the tow by entering the BOOT menu at startup and choosing the drive I want from there.

It's really the only safe way to do this.

I did hear of a short routine that could be loaded into a USB Flash memory, set up as a BOOTable drive, which could act as a drive menu. Sadly, I have never found one that worked.